How'd it go today?

[treebilly]

Camping down at the “farm” this weekend. It’s been somewhat relaxing so far. I’m gonna go strip out a dead spruce tree under the power lines at the entrance so we can widen it a bit. Then back to four wheeler riding and hiking through the woods with the kids. The property owners son ( actual owner now) reassured me that he has no intentions of selling the place. I’ve been stressing over this for a while as his dad has not been doing very good.

 

[flushcut]

I presume you are burning said dead spruce?

 

[Dave Shepard]

Helped my friend set up the crane with a flag for a parade in his town. Will do it again tomorrow in another town.

 

[Maximalist]

Today I sewed a new thing -

 

[lxskllr]

Pretty good day. I deadwooded the pin oak at my house. I wanted to do a canopy anchor so I could try climbing on 11mm line, but I couldn't get a good path isolated, and ended up using my regular rope. Did my first legit light rigging getting a branch from over the house. Just a simple tip tie. Aside from a 1,000 small procedural errors that made a bunch of extra work for myself, everything went pretty well. I'll get the wood cut up tomorrow.

 

[Treeaddict]

Removed (5) Ailanthus trees ranging from 3-10” dbh. Also removed about (40) 1-2” dia root sprouts/ saplings. Climbed and cut on the 20” dbh to get it ready to drop. Dropping will occur next week. Felt really good to get back in a tree and run saws after the COVID bout. Aside from a little lung pain during very deep breaths, things seemed to have cleared nicely. The trees were absolutely infested with the spotted lantern fly. Invasive trees with invasive insects. The removals you feel great about!! Didn’t worry too much about accidentally transporting them to another location since the job was 300’ from home. I could see how easy it would be to spread the insects through tree care work. There were 1000’s of them.

 

[Treeaddict]

Great job John!

 

[lxskllr]

Glad you're feeling better Mike. Hopefully you'll be 100% in short order.

 

[Fiddler]

yesterday: saw a ton of old friends & relatives I hadn't seen in a long time at the memorial service, then on the way home, stopped & visited Nic (timbertramp here) and his family where they were camping.

They have Two young Australian cattle/blue healer dogs that paid me lots of attention...small wonder I spent most of today after work on petfinders website...

 

[SeanKroll]

Pretty good day. I deadwooded the pin oak at my house. I wanted to do a canopy anchor so I could try climbing on 11mm line, but I couldn't get a good path isolated, and ended up using my regular rope. Did my first legit light rigging getting a branch from over the house. Just a simple tip tie. Aside from a 1,000 small procedural errors that made a bunch of extra work for myself, everything went pretty well. I'll get the wood cut up tomorrow.

View attachment 121077

why did this affect which rope you used?

 

[lxskllr]

My 11mm(mercury) rope is an end from a treestuff bag, and only 60' long. Long enough to give it a good trial climb, but I would have had to anchor it(finish the tie off) using the throwline, and leave a throwline tagline on it to remove when finished. It was going through a bunch of lower limbs, and it would have been a real hassle trying to get everything setup to work with a big loop of rope/cord. Dunno if you have pin oaks out that way, but the branches grab and stick to everything, so it's really hard manipulating cord through them, or even tossing cut limbs as far as that goes. The tree grabs them, and they hang up 10' below you :^D

As to the why 11mm... I've soley used ½" rope since I started. I like the hand feel, but I don't like the weight so much with long lengths. It's also hard for other people to use my rope with mechanicals on a rec climb, where you might want to swap lines for a different climbing experience. I can use anything since I use cord, but mechanicals have to be reset for the larger rope, and it's a PITA. I've been thinking about buying a 11mm kernmantle, but I want to give 11mm a good trial before I spend the money. I'm happy with my km3, and the weight isn't that big a deal if I drastically prefer the larger size, but it would be nice shaving a couple pounds, and getting a little more flexibility.

 

[Treeaddict]

Went to the pool with wife and kids. Also, parents, sister and her kids were there. Continuing to teach our 5 yo how to swim. He’s getting where he can go about 30’ without issues. I’m the dad that goes off the diving boards and chases them around the pool so I get exhausted like they do.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Set up the crane for another parade. Decided the flag is not big enough for the size of the crane. Got boss approval for a 20'x40'. Got offered a job rigging for them.

 

[pigwot]

Nice! Rigging can be interesting - perhaps something different every few days if it’s an outfit that covers multiple industries.

 

[SeanKroll]

My 11mm(mercury) rope is an end from a treestuff bag, and only 60' long. Long enough to give it a good trial climb, but I would have had to anchor it(finish the tie off) using the throwline, and leave a throwline tagline on it to remove when finished. It was going through a bunch of lower limbs, and it would have been a real hassle trying to get everything setup to work with a big loop of rope/cord. Dunno if you have pin oaks out that way, but the branches grab and stick to everything, so it's really hard manipulating cord through them, or even tossing cut limbs as far as that goes. The tree grabs them, and they hang up 10' below you :^D

As to the why 11mm... I've soley used ½" rope since I started. I like the hand feel, but I don't like the weight so much with long lengths. It's also hard for other people to use my rope with mechanicals on a rec climb, where you might want to swap lines for a different climbing experience. I can use anything since I use cord, but mechanicals have to be reset for the larger rope, and it's a PITA. I've been thinking about buying a 11mm kernmantle, but I want to give 11mm a good trial before I spend the money. I'm happy with my km3, and the weight isn't that big a deal if I drastically prefer the larger size, but it would be nice shaving a couple pounds, and getting a little more flexibility.

I've connected 120'x 1/2" for climbing to 9mm or 10mm htp to reach the base-tie. The reverse is possible, too.

 

[FireFighterZero]

 

[FireFighterZero]

 

[FireFighterZero]

 

[vharrison]

Jim, that looks like a lot of land!

 

[lxskllr]

My new to me truck was delivered today. A 2008 Frontier. Has the cosmetic issues you might expect on a truck of that age, but it doesn't look too bad...

Dunno how it drives. Laid out LOD in a creek valley today. Shady, but the air was wet and heavy. Felt hotter than it was. Got up to 92° last I saw, so of course I hhad to shorten the grass. I'm typing this in the driveway with sweat pouring off me. I knew it was gonna be hot, and deferred last week on a niceish day, cause I really didn't feel like doing it, and the more you push it off, the more "free" days you get over the season. I probably get to skip four or five shortenings by waiting a bit. I need to brushcut the back 40, but that'll be another day...

 

[Treeaddict]

Nice truck John!

 

[lxskllr]

We'll see. Boss paid for this one at auction. I'm a little skeptical of auto auctions, but whatever. It's his money. It'll be mine in all but fact. That's fine. I'd rather not own a vehicle. I might pay to have a new bumper with a winch attachment put on the front, and a hitch for the back. Gotta see what kind of shape it's in first.

I was looking at used Jeep Gladiators at carmax. Looks like about $40k. I could swing that. Bed's a little smaller than I'd like, but they look like they'd make a solid woods truck for getting into rugged areas. But that's $40k, and I'd have to pay for gas, insurance, repairs... There's a lot to say for having a truck you just drive, even if it's a POS :^D

 

[pigwot]

It was a brutal 94F and humid yesterday (That'll probably feel nice compared to a month or two). Dispatched five crispy Ash trees with the crane. Then ran up a 110 ft poplar to deadwood it in the backyard while David flew the bucket and deadwooded two walnuts out front..
Wrung out like a wet rag by 11am, but kept pushing through to finish (hell of a lot of cleanup with the crispy ones) by 5pm.

Definitely a down day today.

Started by picking another quart of strawberries. Our little 4 ft x 4 ft patch has already produced a good six quarts, with many more coming on.Cleaning up a computer and optimizing it for a friend visiting from California. Awaiting delivery of birthday present for the wife: a new M1 based MacBook, purchased with the proceeds of four crane days.

Was going to try to free up the rusted pins/latches for the quick-connect system for the backhoe, but it's sitting in the sun, it's getting hot out, and now I feel a nap coming on!

 

[treebilly]

Hot yesterday. Went home and relaxed after work. Same today but storms are supposed to be rolling in this afternoon bringing in cooler temps for a few days. I might try to get a few things planted tonight if it’s not pouring.
@flushcut. We didn’t burn the dead spruce. Just pushed it in with the brush pile the line clearance guys left. It was covered in ivy poison anyhow.

 

[lxskllr]

It was a turtley day. I was driving to a job, and saw something in the road last minute and swerved. Pulled over, and checked it out. It was a very young box turtle, maybe 4" across. I put him in the brush off the road in the direction he was heading. His lucky day. He got the turbo lift transport :^D Got off work early, and did some brushcutting at my place, and found this guy...



I later almost(I think) hit a snake. I didn't see any blood, so I'm hoping it was alright. Here's that mystery plant I took from that job and asked about here. I still don't know what it is, but can definitely rule out skunk cabbage...

Other than being way too hot, it was a decent day.